Qianlong seal mark and of the periodThe smoothly rounded body superbly painted in bright underglaze blue with Ming-style 'heaping and piling' with elegantly-spaced floral scrolls variously composed of fully-blooming lotus, peony, chrysanthemum, hibiscus and other blossoms amid foliate scrolls issuing a single vine leaf on each side above the foot, all beneath a band of pendent ruyi-head at the base of the tapering neck painted with two fully blossoming lotus on foliate scrolls each flanked by elephant-head handles modelled with long curving trunks and lingzhi sprays in the mouths, beneath a band of lingzhi fungus scroll at the rim. 45.6cm (17¾in) high

Footnotes

清乾隆 青花纏枝蓮紋雙象耳寶月瓶 青花「大清乾隆年製」篆書款

Provenance: an English private collection, acquired by the owner's grandfather, in the late 19th or early 20th century and thence by descent within the family

來源：英國私人收藏，於十九世紀晚期或二十世紀早期由藏家祖父購得，並由家族繼承下去

The present blue and white moonflask is extremely rare and only one other example of the same form and decoration, but slightly smaller, appears to have been published; see Yang Boda, The Tsui Museum of Art: Chinese Ceramics IV, Qing Dynasty, Hong Kong, 1995, no.74, previously sold by Sotheby's Hong Kong on 30 April 1996, lot 431.

The moonflask is inspired in form and decoration by early Ming Dynasty examples; for a Xuande-period example in the Qing Court Collection, see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, pl.98. A similarly painted blue and yellow glazed moonflask with the composite floral scroll unusually comprising vine leaves, Yongzheng mark and period, in the Qing Court Collection, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (III), Hong Kong, pl.233. For a Qianlong mark and period moonflask, of similar form, but with a border of lotus petal panels above the foot, and with a composite floral scroll without vine leaves, see Chinese Porcelain: The S.C. Ko Tianmilou Collection, Part I, Hong Kong, 1987, pl.65.

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